[ RadSafe ] Pulling the plug on Indian Point

[Gerry Blackwood]

>From the North County News (my home town newspaper) -- 
http://www.northcountynews.com/view.asp?s=5-11-05/topstory.htm

Pulling the plug on Indian Point
Spano calls on NRC to close nuke plants
by Rita J. King
The public sent an unmistakable message to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) last night (Tuesday): "NRC is a 
quack, and we're sitting ducks!"

During a public meeting between Indian Point nuclear power 
plant's owner and operator, Entergy, and the NRC at Crystal 
Bay in Peekskill, a full house gathered with rubber ducks and 
picket signs with slogans to protest a perceived lack of 
oversight by the regulatory agency.

"If they want to bring in their rubber duckies, that's fine," 
Indian Point spokesman Jim Steets remarked. "Just as many 
people in that room support us."

Changing the Rules
With the possibility of a license renewal application for 
Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 soon in the works, many are 
concerned criteria applicable to new plants, such as 
population density, are not being considered in the renewal 
process. The only way around that dilemma is to petition the 
NRC to change its regulations.

Westchester County Executive Andrew J. Spano, with the support 
of Westchester County Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, publicly 
announced intentions to do just that.

"Indian Point is a clear and present danger to the life, 
health and safety of Westchester's 950,000 residents, not to 
mention the millions who live and work in the lower Hudson 
Valley," Spano said. "Indian Point must be closed."

IP 2's operating license expires in 2013, and IP 3 will follow 
soon after in 2015, but the renewal process will be set into 
motion years in advance of those dates.

Spano delivered a litany of grievances, including "periodic 
leaks, poor maintenance of vital infrastructure, environmental 
harm to the Hudson River" and the on-site storage of spent 
nuclear fuel, which continues to build up in the absence of a 
national repository.

"As county executive, I tried in good faith to develop a 
workable plan for emergency evacuation of the thousands of 
adults and children from the congested area around Indian 
Point. We concluded, as did several other county executives, 
that we simply cannot in good conscience certify that the 
evacuation plan will work in a fast-breaking scenario."

On top of that, Spano said, Indian Point was a "prime 
terrorist target."

He said if the plants did not already exist and the 
conversation was about citing a new plant for such a densely 
populated area, "no reasonable person" would advocate for such 
placement, especially given the scant number of major roads 
out of the area.

The agricultural oasis of Indian Point's early days have since 
transformed into a highly developed region containing 300,000 
people within 10 miles of the plants and a million and a half 
within 25 miles, he said.

"The infrastructure simply cannot handle a mass evacuation," 
he said. "In order to fulfill the responsibility we owe to the 
public, we all need to ask, and carefully consider, whether 
the same plant would be licensed, designed and built to 
current standards in the same site today."

A petition was left with NRC officials seeking a change in 
their rules to include a consideration of worst-case scenario 
situations and complete environment in which Indian Point is 
situated as part of the renewal process.

Cross-Cutting Issues
On the surface, the meeting was set up as a technical 
discussion between Entergy and the agency charged with 
regulating and guiding it. The public was permitted to watch 
and, later, to comment.

During the meeting, one of the speakers was barely audible and 
someone in the audience cried out, "Speak up! Tell us about 
Chernobyl on the Hudson!" at which point the audience was 
warned they could continue to sit in on the meeting only if 
the arrangement was productive. The meeting, the audience was 
reminded, was between Entergy and NRC.

Later, many complained about the dry, technical nature of the 
graphs and information presented. Such content presumably 
requires prior in-depth private discussion between the utility 
and NRC and means little to the public in such an 
indecipherable format, said Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition 
member Mark Jacobs.

"It's a dog and pony show for the public," Jacobs asserted. 
"They talk in circles. This meeting showed again that NRC is 
not regulating Entergy."

Indian Point's Director of Engineering Don Leach later said 
the content presented at the meeting has been discussed many 
times behind closed doors.

"There's no new information at this meeting," he said, 
confirming Entergy was already aware of issues being 
presented.

When asked about the reason behind the format, which creates 
the illusion that the public is peering in on an informational 
session, Leach said there were two main purposes.

"The first is to establish the critical nature of the NRC," he 
said, "and the second is to provide the public with an 
opportunity to make comments and interact."

"Years ago, there were no public meetings," Steets said, 
illustrating the transparency he said has evolved over time. 
"The public was not invited to watch or comment. This process 
shows the public how seriously NRC takes oversight, and to 
demonstrate their openness."

Leach remained undaunted by the appearance of rubber ducks and 
the frustrated citizens wielding them.

"Our job is to run the plant safely and effectively," he said.

During the meeting, NRC said Indian Point performed so well 
across the board that additional oversight is unnecessary. NRC 
spokesperson Diane Screnci explained all nuclear plants are 
subject to a baseline level of scrutiny, but those who require 
additional supervision are subject to more inspections.

Despite a finding that Indian Point failed to implement 
initiatives to improve their corrective action program, the 
utility will not be subject to increased inspections.

"This is a cross-cutting issue," she explained, adding it's 
complicated to draw the line between cornerstone issues at 
times. Human performance, she said, is a good example of an 
issue that cuts across borders.

Steets said that category is difficult because it includes 
"addressing behavioral changes."

"Workers have continued to perform beautifully despite 
changes," he said. "We know we're not there yet with fully 
implementing corrective action, but we know it's extremely 
important and we'll get there."

Screnci agreed that "failing to improve corrective action" was 
a broad category. When asked if something like the failure to 
correct a corroded containment structure at Ohio's Davis-Besse 
plant would fall into this category, Screnci admitted she 
wasn't sure of the specific scope of the finding.

The Fountain of Youth
With the clock ticking on license renewals, many legislators, 
residents and environmental watchdog groups fear the aging 
infrastructure of Indian Point might lead to a catastrophe.

Leach, who has worked as an engineer in the industry for 25 
years, said he was "extremely confident" that this will not 
prove to be a problem. The containment structures are so 
air-tight, he said, that NRC is considering conducting certain 
tests every 15 years instead of once a decade because of 
consistently high performance.

The effects of aging, he said, are "irrelevant," because of 
the program of prevention and maintenance that takes places on 
a continual basis.

"Concrete gets stronger over time," Steets said. "Many people 
don't realize that."

Riverkeeper's Indian Point Campaign Director Lisa Rainwater 
van Suntum turned the tables on NRC during the meeting when 
she used their own criteria to give them a color-coded safety 
rating on each of their five main objectives: safety, 
security, openness, effectiveness and management.

On four of the five, she delivered a red rating using evidence 
gathered from events at Indian Point over the course of the 
last year, such as unplanned shutdowns and a ruling by NRC 
that security issues would no longer be discussed publicly.

For management, however, she felt a green rating was 
appropriate.

"They are extremely successful in their managerial objective," 
van Suntum said, "which seems to be keeping Indian Point in 
operation. This meeting was a great indication of how 
ineffective they are. When they asked how many people were new 
to such meetings, so many people raised their hands. All of 
this really helps us in our fight to shut it down."



"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."